Topic: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA says Venus, Jupiter, Mercury to Align in Triple Conjunction in the Sunset Sky May 25th

May 11, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – Sunset is a special time of day.  Low-hanging clouds glow vivid red and orange as the background sky turns cobalt blue. The first stars pop out in the heavenly dome overhead, eliciting wishes from backyard sky watchers.

The sunset of May 26th will be extra special. On that date, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury will gather in the fading twilight to form a bright triangle only three degrees wide.

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NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover sets course towards Second Rock Targeted for Drilling on Mars

May 10, 2013 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The team operating NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has selected a second target rock for drilling and sampling. The rover will set course to the drilling location in coming days.

This second drilling target, called “Cumberland,” lies about nine feet (2.75 meters) west of the rock where Curiosity’s drill first touched Martian stone in February. Curiosity took the first rock sample ever collected on Mars from that rock, called “John Klein.”

This map shows the location of “Cumberland,” the second rock-drilling target for NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, in relation to the rover’s first drilling target, “John Klein,” within the southwestern lobe of a shallow depression called “Yellowknife Bay.” Cumberland, like John Klein, is a patch of flat-lying bedrock with pale veins and bumpy surface texture. The bumpiness is due to erosion-resistant nodules within the rock, which have been identified as concretions resulting from the action of mineral-laden water. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

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NASA reports Herschel Space Observatory sees Hot Gases falling into Super Black Hole at center of Milky Way Galaxy

May 8, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The Herschel space observatory has made detailed observations of surprisingly hot gas that may be orbiting or falling towards the supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important NASA participation.

“The black hole appears to be devouring the gas,” said Paul Goldsmith, the U.S. project scientist for Herschel at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. “This will teach us about how supermassive black holes grow.”

This artist’s concept illustrates the frenzied activity at the core of our Milky Way galaxy. The galactic center hosts a supermassive black hole in the region known as Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, with a mass of about four million times that of our sun. The Herschel space observatory has made detailed observations of surprisingly hot gas that may be orbiting or falling toward the supermassive black hole. (Image credits: ESA-C. Carreau)

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NASA reports International Space Station Scientists study Glow in the Dark Plants

May 7, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – The world is changing.  As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, global temperatures are on the rise. Sea levels inch upward as polar ice retreats. Crops are growing in new places.

The world is changing.  The question is, can life change with it?

A batch of genetically engineered plants orbiting Earth on board the International Space Station (ISS) may have something to say about this.

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NASA’s Cassini Spacecraft discovers Plasma changes at Saturn

May 3, 2013 |

Written by Jia-Rui Cook
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Researchers working with data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have discovered one way the bubble of charged particles around Saturn — known as the magnetosphere — changes with the planet’s seasons.

The finding provides an important clue for solving a riddle about the planet’s naturally occurring radio signal. The results might also help scientists better understand variations in Earth’s magnetosphere and Van Allen radiation belts, which affect a variety of activities at Earth, ranging from space flight safety to satellite and cell phone communications.

This is an artist’s concept of the Saturnian plasma sheet based on data from Cassini magnetospheric imaging instrument. It shows Saturn’s embedded “ring current,” an invisible ring of energetic ions trapped in the planet’s magnetic field. (Image credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL)

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NASA newest robot GROVER heads to Greenland to explore Ice Sheet

May 2, 2013 |

Written by Steve Cole
NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – NASA’s newest scientific rover is set for testing May 3rd through June 8th in the highest part of Greenland.

The robot known as GROVER, which stands for both Greenland Rover and Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, will roam the frigid landscape collecting measurements to help scientists better understand changes in the massive ice sheet.

A prototype of GROVER, minus its solar panels, was tested in January 2012 at a ski resort in Idaho. The laptop in the picture is for testing purposes only and is not mounted on the final prototype. (Credit: Gabriel Trisca, Boise State University)

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NASA reports Herschel Space Telescope completes mission

May 1, 2013 |

Written by Whitney Clavin
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The Herschel observatory, a European space telescope for which NASA helped build instruments and process data, has stopped making observations after running out of liquid coolant as expected.

The European Space Agency mission, launched almost four years ago, revealed the universe’s “coolest” secrets by observing the frigid side of planet, star and galaxy formation.

Herschel spacecraft artist’s concept. (Copyright ESA/AOES Medialab)

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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spots huge Hurricane at Saturn’s North Pole

April 30, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn’s north pole.

In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane’s eye is about 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are traveling 330 mph(150 meters per second). The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon.

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NASA Hubble Space Telescope questions answered by Jennifer Wiseman

April 28, 2013 |

Greenbelt, MD – NASA’s Jennifer Wiseman is the senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, where the mission is managed.

The following questions and answers were provided in April 2013 about the history and the status of the Hubble.

Jennifer Wiseman is a senior astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where she serves as the Senior Project Scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. (Credit: NASA)

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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sees Meteors crash into Saturn’s Rings

April 27, 2013 |

Written by Jia-Rui C. Cook
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn’s rings.

These observations make Saturn’s rings the only location besides Earth, the moon and Jupiter where scientists and amateur astronomers have been able to observe impacts as they occur. Studying the impact rate of meteoroids from outside the Saturnian system helps scientists understand how different planet systems in our solar system formed.

Five images of Saturn’s rings, taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft between 2009 and 2012, show clouds of material ejected from impacts of small objects into the rings. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell)

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